Friends
Stocks finished the first week of trading for 2024 in the red – the first down week in 2 months. As was the case yesterday, there was some buying early in the trading session, but the bulls seemed to fade away only to reappear near the close to keep things in the green, for the day at least. This morning’s hotter than expected jobs number, 216,000 new jobs created in December and an unemployment rate sticking at 3.7% sent bond yields higher, and as we have seen all week, as bond yields rise stocks fell.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 25 points to finish the day at 37,466. The S&P 500 was up 8 points to close at 4,697. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 13 points to close at 14,542. Gold was up $1 to trade at $2,051 per ounce, while oil was up $1.63 to trade at $73.82 per barrel WTI.
A negative first week of trading is typically a bad omen for stocks but again, we just had two months of straight up prices, so I am not going to read too much into anything at the moment. Will the Fed be slower to lower rates in 2024 than recently expected? Today’s jobs data could help give them more room to wait and see if inflation is thoroughly defeated before embarking on an easier monetary policy. Of course, time will tell.
Have a great weekend everyone.
